Nestle India consolidates digital and social duties with Maxus Digital

Seven different agencies were handling brand websites, social media and mobile marketing for Nescafe, Maggi, Milkmaid and other brands.

Nestle India's digital assets, separately being handled by multiple agencies, have now been consolidated with Maxus Digital, the digital arm of Maxus, a global media agency. Earlier, there were seven different agencies handling the mandates for brand websites, social media and mobile marketing for brands such as Nescafe, Maggi and Milkmaid, amongst others. These digital assets of Nestle India brands have now been consolidated with Maxus Digital.

According to the agency, it is a new account win and the association will be leveraged to develop customer loyalty programmes and web solutions with a special focus on analytics. For this, Nestle India has also recently established a comprehensive digital hub called DASH (Digital Acceleration and Services Hub) at its head office in Gurgaon that will enable its marketing teams to listen to digital consumers and engage in conversations.

Besides, Maxus has also set up a dedicated team for Nestle India with skills in social media platforms, measurements and creative and some of these team members will operate in the Nestle India head office.

Speaking to afaqs! about the idea behind the consolidation, Ajit Varghese, MD, Maxus, South Asia states that in digital, brands speak about paid, owned and earned media. "With this, we look at having more presence across earned and owned media for Nestle's brands and hence reduce their dependence on paid media. Nestle has already developed good digital assets and we will work closely with the Nestle team to mesh them with mainstream marketing," he adds.

For the record, owned media is defined as channels that the brand controls or owns. Earned media is when consumers become brand endorsers; while paid media stands for channels that a brand pays to leverage. Global studies have shown that the response rates of paid media across the world are gradually declining.

Commenting on the development, Unny Radhakrishnan, head of digital, Maxus, South Asia, says, "We are very proud to be a part of Nestle's digital journey. In a digitally connected world, reaching and engaging consumers requires expertise and understanding in diverse areas of creative, content, technology, media and the ability to measure."